WHAT CAN BE NEGOTIATED IN AN FDD?

There's, i think, a prevailing myth that things can't be negotiated, and that just isn't true. Some franchisors don't want to, and they don't have to, they're big enough. A lot of it comes down to bargaining power. How much do they want you? In many cases, you have bargaining power. You have to consider that there's 3 to 4,000 franchise brands at any time, in the u.s., and outside of a small percentage of those, they're small companies. Maybe 90% are small franchisors. And if you bring particular things to them, if you have a skill, a language, educational background, something that makes you attractive to them, including your reputation, or other factors, or the fact simply that they just need to sign up another franchise, they need to show one as being sold, gives you some bargaining power. So, you can't start with the assumption that things can't be changed in the document. You can negotiate things, there's a lot of different ways to skin the cat, and even though franchisors may tell you they can't, they actually can.